packy.JPG
Packy's TB treatment is temporarily suspended.
(ROSS WILLIAM HAMILTON/The Oregonian)
The
veterinarian knew that
for a year would have its challenges but he didn't know so many would arise so fast.
Mitch Finnegan said Wednesday that Rama, who started treatment about three weeks ago, began rejecting the oral portion of his drugs on Saturday.
Packy's treatment stopped one day after it started about 10 days ago because the Asian elephant went into musth, a periodic condition during which bulls' testosterone spikes. Often, bulls in musth grow aggressive but Packy simply turns uncooperative, making it impossible for keepers to medicate him.
He appears to already be coming out of it, Finnegan said, so treatment should resume soon.
, when lab results showed active TB in Rama. It was the first known case of TB in an Oregon Zoo elephant.
TB attacks the respiratory system and, left untreated, can be fatal.
The zoo routinely tests all its elephants for the disease. In follow-up testing after Rama's results, labs indicated Packy may have latent TB. The zoo decided to treat him to reduce the risk his infection will become active.
Neither animal has shown symptoms, Finnegan said.
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Treatment for Rama, 30 and Packy, 51, will last a year or longer; the medicines used to treat both elephants are expected to cost about $60,000.
Administering the four drugs recommended by the
isn't exactly a tea party.
One comes in powder form and keepers add it to grain that's part of the elephants' regular diet.
"Everyone told us horror stories about how horrible these drug taste," Finnegan said. "I tasted it and thought, 'That's not so bad.'"
Rama apparently didn't think so either, at first. But Saturday he turned his trunk up at the stuff. Keepers will experiment with adding it to pudding and other treats they know the elephant loves.
They mix the other three drugs with water and inject them rectally while the elephants are restrained in a cage.
Because Rama's strain of TB is highly treatable with antibiotics, Finnegan said, "even if he refuses the oral drug, the rectal drug we're giving him will get this organism."
If, like Packy, Rama goes into musth early in his treatment, the zoo's veterinary and keeper crew will have to start his medication regimen from scratch.
Though new to Portland's zoo, tuberculosis is well known in the industry.
of 480 Asian and African elephants in facilities regulated by the USDA between 1994 and 2011 found 51 with TB, 45 of them the Asian elephant species the Oregon Zoo holds.
Public-health authorities say Oregon Zoo visitors don't -- and never did --risk catching the disease from the elephants.
-- Katy Muldoon